


A Very Voltron Whumptober

by Frozen Linguaphile (Yashiko61)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Post Season 7, Whump, oneshots, spoilers up to season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-07-23 16:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 19,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16162436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yashiko61/pseuds/Frozen%20Linguaphile
Summary: A series of ficlets based on Whumptober prompts. Could be set any season, including post S7 but should be relatively canon compliant up to the end of S7 unless otherwise noted.





	1. Stabbed

Keith made an unhealthy sounding ‘hurk’ that was clearly audible through the comm. Shiro was stuck on the other side of the star system, coordinating the rescue of a number of forced labourers who had managed to launch in escape pods from the Galra star base, and he barely noticed it amongst the multitude of voices on the multiple communications channels feeding onto the bridge.

Maybe the Atlas just nudged his mind to listen to one more carefully over the others. Maybe not.

“Team Voltron, what's the status on the disabled cruiser?” Shiro calls out, pushing aside his concern.

“There was only a skeleton crew!” Pidge responds. “We have the ship's propulsion and defensive systems offline, and the sentries are down. The others should almost be done dealing with the handful of Galra soldiers.”

“Hunk and I are bringing the few injured ones we have to the brig. Allura is checking the engineering area one more time and Keith should be almost done up at the bridge,” Lance chimes in.

“It's all clear up here, I'm on my way to meet with Keith,” Allura reports.

“Keith, how are you doing up there?” Shiro asks.

“Uh, alright,” Keith eventually replies, sounding breathless. “I took out the last couple guards. I, uh, think we should return to the Atlas.”

“We need to wait for a shuttle to take the prisoners,” Allura says. “I'm almost there.”

“What? No, go help Lance and Hunk then. I'll head back to the lions.”

“Nonsense, I'm right here,” she replies, and the door opens to the bridge and once she sees past the four Galra guards, lying dead on the floor, she spots Keith leaning against a console clutching his side.

“You're hurt!” Allura cries out, and Keith winces partly at how it rings out from the speakers in his helmet as much as he wishes no one was there to witness him standing there with a gash in his side. Keith lets the helmet visor retract and he covers his mouth as he lets out a slightly wet cough.

“He's what?!” Lances words echoes Shiro's gut reaction.

“I uh… may have gotten nicked by that last guard. I think it's pretty small. Black didn't fit in the hangar so I still need to make a short jump outside, so I don't want to open up the suit more than I have to so I can look. I'll be fine.”

“I'm alerting the medical bay,” Shiro says. “Can you make it back to the Atlas?”

“I'll take him back,” Allura starts before Keith interrupts her.

“I'm okay to come back on my own.”

Allura’s pursed lips spoke volumes to her opinion on that. “I do not think that is wise,” is all she says out loud.

“I'll be fine,” Keith says with a pained grunt, pushing himself upright and moving towards the door with an air of determination, Allura behind him.

They reach the hangar, and Keith's helmet visor seals again as he triggers the door to open. He jets the short distance into Black’s mouth, clutching his side. Allura shakes her head but jumps into Blue, intent on following Keith back to the Atlas. “Shiro, we are on our way.”

“Copied,” Shiro replies. “The medical team is waiting for Keith.”

It's a fairly short trip back, and Keith's grateful that the process of piloting that day seems mostly mental more than anything. Still, he is a little exasperated when he sees Shiro standing there with the flight surgeon and a couple medics.

Shiro's halfway up the ramp by the time Keith makes it to the mouth hatch, and he reluctantly accepts a hand down. If Keith lets up the pressure on his side for even a moment now it throbs and blood seeps out, and Keith tries to ignore how his blood is clotting on the material of his suit glove.

“It's more than a little cut,” is all Shiro says, a statement more than a question.

“You already summoned our good friend the doctor, so I'll let him make that call for us,” Keith says with forced humour.

He is helped to the medical bay, and Shiro and Allura help him pull the armour plates off, then the suit. His undershirt is stuck to his skin, stained varying shades of blood red. A medic inserts an IV, and the push of painkillers is a welcome relief as he sags against the treatment bed.

“I'll be back,” Shiro says, expression carefully neutral.

\----

An hour later, and Shiro has finished issuing instructions for the clean up phase of the operation. The coalition has been called in to help and relocate the labourers, and the Blades have taken custody of the few remaining Galra soldiers.

He steps into the medical bay, and a nurse gives him permission to come in with a nod. Keith is laid out on his side, eyes almost shut in a drug induced haze, the patient gown pooled around him to expose his side. His breaths fog the oxygen mask placed loosely over his face. The doctor is almost done tying stitches over what is a stab wound maybe four centimetres wide near the bottom of his rib cage, just below where the suit’s chest plate sat.

“It was not deep,” the doctor says, answering Shiro's question before it was asked. “We will seal this up and get him settled for the night with the device Coran helped us build based on Altean specs. It's nothing like what we heard their full healing pods could do, but it should speed up healing if we let it run against Keith's side so that we can take out the stitches by the morning.”

“Is he awake?” Shiro says, sitting down in a chair opposite the doctor as a translucent dressing was applied over the cut.

“Not really. The painkillers have him pretty woozy. But we wanted to be able to see the damage.” The doctor summons a medic, who helps cover the moist dressing with a larger dry one, and they get Keith turned onto his back.

Shiro pulls the covers from the foot of the bed, and as soon as the device, soft and malleable like a heating pad, is secure against Keith's side, he helps to cover him. Keith's eyes crack open for a moment, but they close just as fast and his breathing evens out into a steady rhythm.

Shiro slumps back into the chair next to the bed, and just sits there for a long while, holding Keith's hand, until the nurse finally kicks him out for the night.

 


	2. Bloody Hands

“No, no, no,” Shiro practically screams in frustration. Where in the hell was all of it coming from? His suit, previously grey, was staining a shocking shade of blue.

The blue of Slav’s blood.

Shiro had no idea that Slav’s species had blue blood. Did this partially explain Slav’s preoccupation with the colour?

Well, he's sure that Slav will tell him. But first, he has to save the damned scientist, even though a small voice in the back of Shiro's head points out that it would save him a lot of frustration in the future if the obnoxious space ferret met an unfortunate end here.

But alas, he's been reminded time and again that no matter how infuriating Slav could be, he was invaluable to them.

Where is the hell then, was all the blood coming from? He pries one of the pairs of hands away from Slav’s torso, and a trio of gashes is revealed. Claw marks. Slav makes a pathetic whining noise, and Shiro lets the hands return back to put pressure on the spot.

He looks at his blood coated prosthetic and sighs. This suit is already probably irreparably stained, and he taps the computer on his left wrist. “Hey guys? I have Slav. I don't think we will be able to take him out to the lions the old fashioned way.” There's no way he's going to find a space suit he can fit Slav into, and the escape pods were all jettisoned.

“Hunk’s on his way. He has an emergency air tight stretcher,” Keith tells him over the comm.

“Thank god,” Shiro mutters to himself. He had not counted on a surprise attack when they came over to this ship to meet with neutral scientists. Of course Slav panicked badly, got separated from Shiro, and cornered himself into a storage room, only to get attacked before Shiro managed to get to him. Only then did he realize that all the escape pods were now gone, as was their little shuttle.

So here he is, alone on the ship, helping press Slav’s hands over the wound oozing blue blood, just waiting for Hunk.

The ship shudders, and it takes a couple minutes but Hunk arrives with the specialized stretcher. Basically a reinforced air bubble, Shiro carefully stuffs Slav inside and is just happy that he's unconscious for this. Because he would freak out big time if he was awake.

Not wanting to chance Slav waking up, Shiro shoves his helmet on and they promptly head out to the Yellow Lion. Reaching the ship, Shiro happily hands the alien off to the bemused, and very human staff of the Atlas’ medical bay.

He peels off his flight suit in the privacy of his quarters, and steps into the tiny phone booth sized shower, where he carefully rinses off the prosthetic arm, letting the blue blood run off the palm of the hand and splatter, diluted by the warm water as it swirls towards the drain.

Another day, another instance of saving Slav from himself.


	3. Insomnia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in early S6

It had been over a hour of laying awake in his bed before he gave up and allowed himself to sit up and look up the clock. A quintant was not exactly the same as an Earth day, and sometimes the humans on the castle got their internal clocks off sync with the time keeping of the universe around them. And yes, he did go to bed a little early, but there was no logical reason to be up now, only a few hours after the equivalent of midnight.

He had gone to the bathroom when he first woke up, and that was often enough to convince his body that it had no right to be awake at this hour except for an emergency. Just not tonight.

Actually, it was much more common than it had been for him to keep waking up. Insomnia seemed to be the new norm, rather than an exception.

Alas, he was weirdly hungry, and although he usually avoided raiding the leftovers that Hunk always made sure were packed away in the kitchen, it couldn’t hurt. So he pulls the robe over his pyjamas and shuffles on his slippers before plodding off with quiet footsteps to the kitchen.

He pulled a small portion out of the food preserver (it worked sort of like a fridge, but not quite) and into the reheater (again not quite like a microwave oven but close enough), and in a move that would horrify Hunk, hopped up to sit on the counter, where he was lost in his own thoughts before the sound of the door opening startled him.

“Oh sorry Lance, I didn’t realize you were awake,” Shiro’s voice carries across the room.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Lance says with a hint of exhaustion.

“So you are raiding the kitchen?” Shiro asks with amusement.

“Says the other person up and in here.”

“Touché. Although to be honest, I just wanted to get some hot water.”

“You drink that by itself?”

“Ah, well it might be a family quirk,” Shiro shrugs. “I always get a chill if I drink cold water at night. The water filter is better in the kitchen than the hot water supply off my room.”

“I guess that’s fair,” Lance says, pulling the now hot dish out and stirring the portion of stir fry and testing a bite. It seems to have held together reheated better than some of Hunk’s other experiments.

“You’ve been waking up at night more often,” Shiro surmises, leaning up against the counter with the mug of steaming water clutched in his hands. He has a warm sweater that they found somewhere over a tank top and soft sleep pants.

“I guess,” Lance ponders between mouthfuls of food. “Wait, how do you know that?”

“I’ve had regular insomnia for so long now that I think I just know,” Shiro says with a hint of sadness. “I wish I could say that it’s something that you can get used to, but you never do.”

“Since Kerberos?” Lance asks.

“More or less,” Shiro agrees. “Although yours has been more recent.”

“I don’t know, something happened about a couple weeks ago, and I just have been struggling to sleep more than three or four hours at a stretch since.”

“Have you talked to Coran?”

“Nah. I’ve just been trying to go to bed early. If I do that I can usually manage enough sleep even if I am up for part of the night.”

“I am sure he can produce something similar to melatonin.”

“Why haven’t you asked him already?”

“I just prefer to deal with my insomnia in other ways.” Shiro says. “Anyways, I am going to try to lay down again myself. But if you need to talk, I am up for a couple hours most nights anyways. Come knock on my door.”

“I don’t want to bother you,” Lance protests.

“It’s never a bother, really,” Shiro gives a tired smile. “You should try to get some more sleep yourself. And go see Coran in the morning.”

“Sure,” Lance says, stifling a yawn.

“Good night Lance.”

“You too.”


	4. "No, stop!"

With the possible exception of Hunk, who at least had a snowball’s chance in hell at understanding the flow of technical jargon, the others regularly tried their best to stay out of the way when the Holts were working out problems together.

It was just too overwhelming.

They had learned to deal with Pidge well over their adventures, and Shiro had experience with Matt and Sam, and the combination of those two in the run up and journey to Kerberos. But put all three together? It just multiplied the experience exponentially. And Colleen was almost just as bad.

So Shiro, Keith, and Lance were carefully hiding from the mad scientist family, at least until it came time for the actual mission briefing.

“So,” Lance says, from the comfort of the rec room couch, “I guess Pidge has gotten over her qualms of using your new arm as a computer terminal.”

“In all fairness, her father burst that bubble,” Shiro sighs.

“They know that there is probably ways to deliver this virus they have been coding for the last three days straight that don’t involve dragging Shiro onto Galra ships as a delivery method, right?” Keith blurts out rhetorically.

“Look, I get why they say it still works better, because some of the coding for the computer in the arm is based off of the arm the Galra gave me, but it’s kind of hard for me to control the Atlas when I am not on the actual ship.”

“Hunk and Pidge have been working on some sort of drone that could do it,” Lance says, flipping through things on his phone. “But it’s just one of a million side projects.”

“After this I will talk with Sam. Maybe Colleen. It might be time to make it a priority, especially if we need to do this every couple missions.”

“Won’t you miss going on away missions?” Keith asks.

“I don’t doubt that there will still be plenty of those in my future. But for simple disabling of Galra ships? I’m content to let a robot do that for me,” Shiro says.

\---

The next day, he’s suited up and standing balanced behind Pidge in the green lion. They had come upon a large Galra transport ship that appears to have stopped to do engine maintenance. There is a couple maintenance bots and suited figures around the engines, but it looks particularly vulnerable. It is not typical practice to do maintenance like this, and Shiro wonders if it is because the coalition is finally making a dent on disabling Galra orbital bases.

“Engaging cloaking now,” Pidge announces, and Shiro shoves his helmet on as they move from behind a moon to closer to the vessel.

The usual weak spot, the maintenance air lock, is obviously full of personnel, so they find another one on the port flank. Leaving the lion to hover nearby, they enter, and the computer connection in his new prosthetic makes quick work of the door controls. They reorient to ship gravity, and make their way into the ship. At the first secluded computer terminal, he orients himself so that he can still see part of the way into the corridor and pulls the blaster from the holster. He’s not as good a shot as Lance, but ranged weaponry is essential on this raid.

Pidge just nods, and he lets the floating arm press against the terminal. It blinks bright for a moment, and the small screen begins to show lines and lines of Galran computer code. Pidge mirrors it on her wrist display and begins to work.

There is no alarm, but footsteps are audible in the distance, and Shiro stiffens. Pidge, out of habit, presses the arm against the terminal controls, intent on not allowing the contact to break while her virus downloads and installs.

The blaster shot wizzing over his shoulder ends that just as fast. He spins around and the arm follows him

“No, stop!” she hisses, but she summons her bayard. She loops her hand around his right bicep, trying to urge him back, but he’s already trying to fire back at the sentries.

“We have to deal with these first!” he hisses back. But the alarm begins to blare and it is clear that their cover is gone.

“I need maybe 45 seconds more,” she yells at him, grabbing the prosthetic with both hands. “You shoot with the left hand, I take out the whole damn ship. Deal?”

He just rolls his eyes, but lets her guide the arm. The code begins to run on the monitor again, and Pidge closes her eyes in concentration. He does his best to hold them off, but he clearly needs more time at the range to build some semblance of accuracy in marksmanship with his left hand. He loses his right arm twice, and he should be better than this but his brain has always remained stubbornly wired to be right handed.

“Almost there,” she says, frantically tapping at the display. Another sentry goes offline with a lucky shot, but there are more right behind it. “We are going to have to go for a hot exit,” he warns Pidge.

“Green might be able to make a shortcut,” she says, and with a few final taps, she whoops and the power flickers around them. “The sentries will continue on automatically, but the nav computer is permanently disabled. Go!”

He gratefully is able to toss the blaster to the other hand, and more confidently takes out more sentries, leaving them a small opening to move back towards the airlock they came in. But as they get closer, the paw of the green lion comes crashing through the wall. The emergency bulkheads come crashing down behind them, limiting the effects of the sudden exposure to hard vacuum, allowing them to enter the lion’s mouth in a controlled manner.

Pidge dives into the pilot seat, hits the cloaking again, and they are off.

It’s after a few minutes of weird silence, when they both break out into awkward laughter.

“Well, that was an adventure,” Shiro laughs.

“And you say you won’t miss it,” Pidge jokes back.

“Look, I am sure I will be out there more than the admiralty back home wants me to, but do me a favour and make your little drone to do this for us already? Okay?”

Pidge just laughs, “Yeah yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been super busy then out of town, but am catching up as I have time. #6 & 7 are mostly done, just need to work on #5. Also, this was not really edited much. Sorry all!


	5. Poisoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set somewhere around late S1

Hunk looks at the ingredients laid before him. He's still largely trying to figure out the culinary properties of all the supposedly standard foodstuffs that Coran has managed to get a hold of, but it's slow going to first test each one for proteins, toxins, and such that might not agree with their human biology.

Then, if that is all good, it's translating notes and recipes for common preparations and flavour information, and only then can he try to make something with it.

He's starving though, and after a couple dozen tests that come up with no red flags, he skips one that seems to be just a variant of another he tested that day, and chops it up along with other veggie type things in the safe pile and gives it a go as a stir fry type dish.

There is no immediate red flags, but that night he begins to feel a bit off. Shrugging it off, he goes to bed.

He's been asleep for maybe an hour or two when he wakes up in a cold sweat, stomach churning angrily. He barely makes it to the Altean equivalent of a toilet before his stomach violently empties itself, and he sags against the cool material in exhaustion when he finally stops retching.

He rinses his mouth, and goes back to bed, but dozes at most an hour before he is dry heaving into the toilet. By the third time, he makes his way on shaky legs to Coran’s room, and is soon enough being looked over by Coran and Shiro, who’s perpetual nightly insomnia was for once a blessing.

“Well, number 2,” Coran tells him thoughtfully, “I think something you ate doesn't agree with you humans. The protein couldn't be digested and your body interpreted it as a toxin.”

“So a kind of food poisoning?” Shiro asks.

“I suppose one could call it that,” Coran nods. “I don't think we can do much beyond getting you set up somewhere comfortable to sleep,” he says to Hunk.

Shiro hums. “But you said you scanned everything that went into the dish you made, right?”

“Well, actually there was a root vegetable that looked just like another that was safe. I guess I got lazy and didn't scan it too,” he admits.

“I'm going to move the leftovers into the medical lab,” Coran says. “Before one of the rest of you try to eat any of it.”

“Good idea, Coan,” Shiro says. “I'll get Hunk settled back in his room,” he says, pulling what looks like a large metal mixing bowl out from a cupboard. “Just in case you can't make it to the bathroom,” he says.

“Thanks, space dad,” Hunk tries to muster a joking smile. Shiro looks affronted for a moment then just sighs as he guides Hunk down the hall.


	6. Betrayed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set around S6

Allura sat in the cockpit of the blue lion in a cloud of unspoken grief and self-loathing. Coran has kept Romelle occupied in the rear area, sensing that the princess needed time, space, and opportunity to decompress. It was a long, hard, and emotionally draining day, and the loss of the castle of lions was just a crushing blow to her spirit.

Alas, most of her anger seemed for now to be centred around the betrayal she felt from Lotor.

Shiro, temporarily stabilized in a portable healing pod, was hanging on to life. She would need to find a way to definitively purge this body, the clone, of whatever remaining influence the druids may have had over it, and then, hopefully, bring the true Shiro back.

But for now, while she was mercifully alone, she finally had time to cry.

Not even a quintant ago, Lance had done his best to comfort her over Lotor. With the prince abandoned within the rift, left to his own fate, she mourns the future that she had seen and embraced all too readily.

She was naive. Weak. And the castle was gone as a result.

She hopes that when Shiro does wake up, not if, he will understand. Because she also feels like she has failed him by missing, perhaps ignoring, the signs that not all was right.

Tears slowly dripped onto her lap, and she held back audible sobs but shook with the effort. The mice curled around her, offering silent support but letting her have the release she desperately needed.

It was perhaps a varga later, after alternating many times between crying and guilt ridden contemplation, that she hears the airlock cycle. Her head snaps up, because other than the paladins, the only ones with a space suit is Krolia, Keith’s Galra mother. But it’s not her, instead is Lance’s lanky form.

He lets the door slide shut behind him, and without speaking, takes off his helmet and sets it in the corner where his voice hopefully cannot trigger the comms. The calming colour of his armour seems at home in the blue lion’s cockpit, and he clearly feels it too.

“Hey Blue, thanks for calling me. I miss you too,” he says softly, looking up before turning to face Allura.

Allura almost stares at him. “The lion called you?”

“I felt, uh, unease. And when I called Coran, he said you might appreciate someone to talk to.”

“You should not have left your lion.”

“I made sure that Red could continue on auto pilot for a while. Pidge thinks that they have a planetoid identified. Atmosphere should be breathable. We can stop there for a while to rest, but for now we are okay to formation fly with most of the lions on autopilot.”

Her lips are pressed closed in a thin line, clearly disagreeing although she knows that there is no reasonable reason why it’s not essentially true.

“How is Keith?” she deflects.

“Watching over Shiro like a hawk. Krolia looked over him, and he’s probably more bruise than not under his suit, and that burn on his face is almost certainly going to scar now unless we find another Altean healing pod. But he should be fine.”

“Right,” she says. There was an angry patch of red over his cheek. It was a miracle that there was no damage to his eye.

Lance carefully perches on the console next to her, and his hand gently rests on her shoulder. She’s suddenly self-conscious of the tear tracks dried on her face, and she rubs at them a little.

“You should grab something to eat. Coran has a couple food pouches. When we land next we can look at what everyone has and distribute the supplies a bit more evenly.” Lance just looks quietly concerned.

“I will, eventually,” she says.

“We need you to take care of yourself.”

“I am least worried about myself,” she sighs. “I have lost the castle, we have Shiro still lost within the spirit of Voltron, and Lotor is still somewhere in the quintessence field.”

“You were not the only one he betrayed, Allura. You cannot blame only yourself,” he tries to soothe.

“I have an obligation to you all!” she snaps. “Yes, Lotor betrayed me, us, but I let it happen. And now I don’t know how I am supposed to protect you.” Her voice hitches, and fresh tears swell.

Lance kneels next to her seat, and pulls her into an embrace. His hair smells vaguely of sweat, but she allows herself to hold onto the back of his chest plate, burying her face into his shoulder padding, muffling the sobs that now consume her again.

“It’s okay,” he soothes. “I am here for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally catching up after an evening traveling back from visiting family. I've given up hope of editing any of this until all the drafts are complete, so pardon the hot mess I am sure some of these are.


	7. Kidnapping

“Seriously?” Pidge whined, more than a little loudly. “What the heck is with you two?”

Ezor just cackles. “We know they have a sweet spot for you. And what better lure to bring the rest of Voltron and the Atlas to us than you?”

She’s sitting cross legged in the corner of the makeshift cell, glowering at the two former generals of Lotor’s in spite of herself. They would still tower over her even if she stood up, and they hadn’t bothered to take off the damned cloth bag that they stuffed over her head when they grabbed her.

It’s a good thing that Ezor, the more annoying one, was neither humble, quiet, or subtle.

Pidge was actually on a mission with her brother, so she knew it was less likely that the Atlas was going to swoop in than an angry Matt Holt. Granted, there was both her dad and Shiro on the Atlas, and most of the other paladins, so it wasn’t totally out of the realm of possibility, but Matt and his rebel gang were probably more than capable of finding her.

She had somewhat stupidly taken off her helmet in an attempt to hear the audio from a damaged console on an abandoned Galra cruiser that they had found. When she was grabbed from behind and the bag went over her head, she tried to summon the bayard but her hands were held above her head and away from the leg armour. She’s not really sure how they disabled it, but there is what feels like a thin band wrapped over her thigh.

Once she gets out, she wants to take a look at whatever in the heck that is. It could prove useful. Alas.

“Voltron isn’t even in the same system, you idiots,” she tells Ezor with a hint of exasperation. Okay, so that wasn’t totally truthful, but out beyond the Oort cloud was enough that even the Atlas would take a couple hours under normal circumstances.

It sounds like the bigger Galra, Zethrid, is pacing at the other side of the room.

“Where did you leave your kitty?” Ezor asks in her usual sing-song voice.

“Like I would tell you.”

“Zethrid, I think we need to get the stuff ready. I suppose it’s time to find out just how strong this little one is.”

“Ezor, just do it already. But remember, if you break it permanently, it can’t help us.”

The ship rumbles around them. A hit? But it doesn’t feel quite right. She can’t help it, and looks around with trepidation, but can’t see anything still. Where in the hell was her helmet?

“Well, well, it looks like we have visitors, Zethrid.” Ezor grabs Pidge by the collar of her armour. A sliver of light appears from near her chest. “Who is our visitor, little one?”

Pidge is raised just enough off the floor that her feet have no traction, and she ineffectually kicks at Ezor. “No idea,” she says with a small grunt.

Zethrid leaves the room, grumbling about having to deal with everything herself. Ezor doesn’t let go, and Pidge wonders if she could get enough thrust from the jet pack to free herself.

There is another shudder, much stronger this time, and Ezor loses her grip on Pidge for a moment, and the green paladin crashes to the floor. The door slides open, and Matt appears in a vengeful mood, and it sounds like he manages to bludgeon Ezor over the head before grabbing his sister under her arm and yanking her out of the room.

They get maybe 30 metres down the corridor before he has a moment to yank the bag off her head, and shoves her helmet on.

“Hang on,” he warns, before triggering an explosion that takes out the viewport on the wall. She holds onto his pressure suit as they are ejected outside, and it takes a moment of spinning before she regains enough composure to fire her jet pack and stabilize themselves. She pushes them further from the ship, and they come to a stop near an asteroid that should mask their signals except to the other paladins.

Matt’s face is mostly obscured by his own helmet, but his voice is a welcome anchor. “Jeez, I look away for one moment and I have to come rescue you,” he complains. “The Atlas is sending Lance in Red to come grab us, are you okay?” he asks with more seriousness.

“I can’t summon the bayard,” she says. “That thing on my armour is causing interference.”

He tries giving it a yank, but it’s on there firmly. “I think we need to wait until we get back to deal with that, but let’s try to get your handcuffs off,” he says, fiddling with the mechanism, before pulling up his wrist computer, and programming an interference signal. It pops off in what would have been a click if they weren’t limited to the sounds of their own breathing and the comms, and she is glad to be rid of the restraints. She tries to pull the band off her thigh armour, but sure enough, it is stuck.

They hook their elbows, and float there for not even an hour, idly chatting and coding until Lance arrives in the red lion. The Holt siblings let themselves plunk down in a tired heap in the back during the trip back to the Atlas, although Lance says that they are not in a position to immediately reattack the Galra ship.

Back at the Atlas, Pidge lets Shiro and her parents fuss over her. The band comes off her armour, and she is sent off reluctantly for a rest period instead of getting to help learn how the tech managed to disable the bayard.

She allows herself the luxury of a longer shower, and curls into bed. One of the space caterpillars snuggles up to her with a purr, and she lets herself relax into a nap.


	8. Fever

It's not even a day after the surgery, and Shiro's still essentially hiding in his new quarters, ostensibly to have some privacy to get used to the fine motor controls with the prosthetic before he's expected to actually do anything with it.

So when he misses breakfast and then lunch the next day, Pidge is sent by her father to go check up on him, and try and coax him out.

She's pressing the buzzer, and is about to take off to see if he's at the gym instead when the door finally slides open. He's still in his soft sleep pants and tank top, with the throw blanket from his bed draped over his shoulders, but the flushed sheen to his skin is in contrast to everything else.

“Sorry,” he says with a dry throat. “I was sleeping.”

Pidge looks at him critically. “Uh, Shiro, you don't look like you're doing so well.”

“Most of the drugs have worn off. I'm just tired,” he brushes her off.

“You missed both meals so far, Dad was worried about you,” she explains.

He manages a small smile in return. “I spent part of the morning practicing my handwriting. I'll order something to eat but I'm not really hungry to be honest. Tell your dad that I'll see him at the evaluation tomorrow, ‘kay?”

She leans against the door jam, a look of mild disbelief still firmly set. “The doctors said you were to come sooner if you had discomfort or signs of infection. Maybe you should just-”

“I'm okay, Katie,” he says, firmly. He takes a step forward, moving into her personal space with the obvious goal of encouraging Pidge to step back, out of the doorway. She can smell the stale sweat on him and she stands her ground, reaching up to touch his forehead.

“You have a fever, Shiro.” 

“I was just curled up in bed,” he deflects.

“Shiro, don't make me mom you. Or call my dad.”

He rolls his eyes at her, and lets out a long breath. “Fine, give me a moment. I want to brush me teeth before the flight surgeons swarm me.” He steps back into the room, and Pidge lets the door slide shut. About fives minutes later, he emerges having clearly ran a wet cloth other his face, and he finishes shuffling into new running shoes. He has a hoodie pulled on, obscuring the shoulder again, and he lets Pidge lead the way to the medical building.

Sam and a flight surgeon are waiting in the treatment room when they arrive, and Pidge reluctantly leaves at her father's request.

Shiro pulls the sweatshirt off, revealing an inflamed shoulder. A nurse comes in to pull a blood sample, and the doctor scans the joint then carefully looks over where the metal meets the flesh. 

“It appears that there is the beginnings of a mild infection. I'm going to get you set up for an IV antibiotic drip while we run the sample through the lab, but we will also push a painkiller and anti-inflammatory.” 

“Great,” Shiro says with a grumble.

“Then we will send you back to your room with a monitoring bracelet. Unless your fever spikes, there is no reason why you can't spend the night there,” the doctor says, typing the orders into the computer terminal.

Sam helps him pull the sweatshirt on over the sore shoulder, and pushes the sleeve up on the left forearm. The same nurse from before inserts the IV promptly, and hooks up the small bag of antibiotics.

He's left to doze on the treatment bed, covered in a soft blanket that came from a warmer that alleviates his perceived chill. A hour later the doctor and Sam come back, and with instructions to rest in his room and return in the morning, he is taken back to his quarters.

There is a covered bowl of stew in a warmer tray on his desk, with Hunk’s messy scrawl on a note that simply says “Call any of us if you need something.”

He steps into the bathroom, and pulling off his sweaty clothes to shower, he notes that the medication has at least temporarily made his shoulder less tender. He pulls out the weird shower cover he was issued to keep the joint dry while it heals, and carefully seals it then steps under the warm spray of water.

He sighs at the comfortable sensation and tries to relax for the next ten minutes or so, before he reluctantly shuts the water off and towels off. He slips into bed with clean bed clothes and turns off the lights, letting himself relax into sleep while his body doesn't ache.


	9. Stranded

Alone.

Pidge hasn't really felt alone in weeks, and it takes a moment or two of silence, all the alarms muted, for it to really sink in.

Part of her wants to relish in in. There certainly was no true alone time at the Garrison, not with daily tests, simulator runs, and group projects to keep her going nonstop.

Then it was endless training, battles, and trying to learn what she could from Coran so that the strange and wondrous technology around her made sense.

She practically dreamed of having time away from the boys and Allura, just a day, so that she could just sit there, and let everything from the past year absorb.

So when she is spat out of a wormhole into a cosmic junk heap, her first instinct is to relax. But she can't. Because the logical and pragmatic part of her brain was screaming out at her.

She was stranded. And without knowing where the others might be, she needed all her wits about her to stay alive, and all her skills to thrive, no matter what life was intent on throwing at her,

Time to get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a wee ficlet for this one


	10. Bruises

From the safety of the black lion, Keith shoos his mother out of the cockpit and gingerly begins to pull off the pieces of armour, revealing the back seam of the undersuit that he opens, hissing at the cool feeling of the air. He shrugs out of the flexible material, revealing his skin.

The mottled, purple bruising stands out against his pale skin, only interrupted by the biggest and worse of his scars, namely the one that stands out on the indent of his shoulder, the physical reminder of his trial to be a Blade of Marmora.

He had been doing his best to pretend that his body was not aching in more places than he could count. The fight with Shiro was long, arduous, and tested them both. They knew each other so well, or so Keith had thought, that their weaknesses were exposed and their strengths countered with every blow.

And now the body of Shiro’s clone lay comatose in the portable healing pod, lifesigns fading slowly in spite of the life support. Krolia watched the pod like a hawk while Keith slipped away momentarily.

He pulls open the limited first aid kit that someone had placed in the back of the black lion. He pulls open a packet of a painkiller that seems to work like ibuprofen, and he swallows a tablet of it dry. He wipes himself down with a damp cloth while his undersuit lays opened up, draped over the back of the pilot chair to air out, and he contemplates pulling on his Blade of Marmora suit but decides against it. There is not much else in the kit that is useful, but there is some sort of antiseptic salve that he dabs over the tender blistered skin on his cheek.

There is a duffle filled with his small collection of clothing, and he ruffles through it, pulling out a clean pair of underwear, a fresh compression shirt with long sleeves, and socks, leaving just the bruising around his hands and on his legs exposed. It’ll at least make him feel better about eventually pulling on his armour again, even though the sight of it continually reminds him of the horrors of the last day.

He piles the armour pieces to one side, and makes his way to the back of the lion.

Krolia looks up at him, and gives a small nod, making space on the crate sitting next to the medical pod. He pads across the room in his socked feet, and takes a seat, leaning against her for support as the cosmic wolf adjusts at his feet.

“We need to have Allura and Coran examine him when we make the first stop,” she says softly. “This body is weakened significantly and without the reserve energy supply to place him into stasis, I am not sure how long we can sustain him like this.”

He fiddles with the hem of the sleeves of his shirt. “I see,” he replies.

She turns to look him over with a critical eye. “You have significant contusions. Aside from that and the wound on your face, do you have other injuries?” she asks in a tone that clearly sets out that she will know if he lies.

“Not that I can tell. But I might be almost more purple than you right now,” he jokes with a bitter laugh. She clearly understands the reference, and gives the slightest of chuckles in return.

“I somehow doubt that, but I will see what we have for medical equipment and we might be able to quicken the healing process. We don’t know how soon we may find ourselves in a fight,” she says with more seriousness.

“Pidge is doing a sweep for a habitable place to land,” he changes the subject, pushing off the crate to go look for a blanket among the supplies. “It may take a while. If you don’t mind keeping an eye on Shiro back here, I am going to lay down for a varga or two up in the cockpit.”

“There is a pull down cot back here,” she says.

“It’s okay,” Keith says in a tone that implies that he is not interested in debating. “I can lean the pilot seat back enough to get some rest. And then if we find a spot to land, I’ll be ready for it.”

She rummages through her own bag, pulling out a small bottle. “Before you sleep, try rubbing this into your skin. It is potent, so use it sparingly. But it may help soothe the aches.”

Keith accepts the bottle and takes a cautious sniff. It smells terrible, and he’s not eager to get it on any of his relatively clean clothing. “Uh, maybe I’ll pass. But thanks, Mom.”

“As you wish. Go then, I will wake you in a few varga if you don’t get up sooner on your own,” she says, making a shooing direction towards the cockpit doors. Keith takes the few steps up, and takes a final look back at Shiro’s pod before the cockpit doors close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeey, I'm caught up again.


	11. Hypothermia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the second half of S2

“Guys,” Hunk begins to complain over the comm, “I feel like I should point out for the record that my family is from Samoa. A tropical island. Where there is no snow. Like, ever. I really am not made for this sort of weather.”

“Hunk,” Pidge snarks back, “I told you once, but this obviously needs repeating. Yes, we know you don’t like the cold, but you have your suit on, you should be fine, it’s only half a kilometre to the base, and for the record, none of us grew up where there was a lot of snow, if any. So you’re complaining to the wrong audience.”

He trudges through the shifting drifts of powdery snow, each step a balancing act. He hears Lance struggling behind him. “I hope this data is right, although I can see why the Blades set up an emergency base here, because no one in their right mind would want to be here.”

“Remind me why we are visiting the ice planet Hoth again?” Lance whines behind Hunk.

“Hoth? You mean the planet Grolicia,” Coran interrupts, prompting Pidge, Keith and Shiro to all roll their eyes. “We were told they have a supply of a certain type of biomatter cell that we need for the castle to keep the food synthesizer system healthy. It should be a short mission.”

“Okay, we get that, but if this is a Blade base, why isn’t Keith down here with us?”

“The red lion is more vulnerable to extreme cold,” Allura explains again with the patience of a saint. “It should be a short enough mission that it is not of concern, but we did not want to risk having issues with its power levels.”

Hunk thinks that he is starting to make out the outline of a building in the distance, tucked against a mountain ridge. “I think we just got a visual on the base entrance. The visibility is really crap here.”

“Understood. The door should be easy enough to find,” Shiro says. “We were told by Kolivan that the base itself is minimally armed, the entry code should be enough to disable the alarm.”

The two of them eventually trudge up to the entrance of the base, and Hunk enters the code that Keith has supplied. The door opens about half a foot before stalling, and the two of them have to give it a good pull to open enough for them both to slip in.

The door slides shut behind them with a groan, and emergency lighting flickers on.

It is just as cold inside as out, alas without the windchill that made the outside feel even colder.

The Paladin suits were made to insulate the wearer again a lot of environmental hazards, but it was primarily for either temperate climates or hard vacuum. It eventually could absorb or leak heat, and Hunk could have sworn it was already happening to him.

Lance, looking at crates in the other storage room, has also been hiding the odd shiver. He had retracted the visor on his helmet for maybe 10 seconds before declaring it too damn cold, the air supplied by his suit was less harsh on his lungs.

“Hunk, I think I found it,” he says, and Hunk is with him a minute later, helping him to move about three dozen of the small pouches into insulated carrier bags.

They make it back to the door, and Lance gives the controls a push. But the door stubbornly is jammed, and neither one of them can get a grip to pull the panel open.

“Uh guys?” Lance says in a tired tone, “We have a problem here.”

\---

It turns out that Coran thinks that the blizzard will subside enough that they can send one more lion down, but it will be a couple varga at least before it would be safe to do so. So Lance and Hunk are told to hang tight, and they wander to the back end of the little supply depot, looking for environmental controls that Hunk might be able to revive in hope of some heat.

Alas, even when they think they found the right console, it remains stubbornly offline.

They unwrap thin foil blankets that they find, and cuddle up in a corner in view of the main door, and wait for their rescue. Lance has never been the most patient of people, but the cold seems to have zapped his will to active pace or putter, as is his tendency. Instead, he reluctantly dozes, head resting against Hunk’s shoulder.

Nearly three varga later, there is a loud thunk, and the two of them reluctantly leave what little warmth they accumulated under their emergency blankets to stand near the door as Shiro’s Galra hand slowly cuts through the thick door material. As the person sized slab falls into the room, they are greeted by Shiro and Keith, and quickly helped through the blowing snow into the jaw of the black lion, where the two of them are quickly covered in another blanket and sat down in the back.

Launching into orbit, Lance suddenly startles, and speaking into his helmet, calls out to the others. “What about our lions?”

Shiro chuckles on his end. “It looks like they took the initiative and are following us up to the castle,” he tells them. “Saves us the hassle of towing them up.”

Hunk just sighs in relief and sinks back against the wall, next to Lance. “Good.”

On the ship, Coran leads them to the infirmary, where they strip off the armour and are bundled into beds covered in a cocoon of warm blankets. “It looks like you are both running a little cooler than your normal body temperatures, but I am certain that you will been raring fit by morning,” he declares, as Pidge and Allura pass them mugs of a warm, steaming broth.


	12. Electrocution

Altean tech might be quite different from Earth’s, but there is one thing that Hunk feels like he can always be certain about: repairing circuits is almost harder work than just creating or installing full replacements.

He’s hunched over a lab table, with the strongest magnifying glass he’s found so far on the castle. Pidge protested at him borrowing it, but she can’t use everything at the same time, and the alternative is using something akin to a microscope.

The circuit board was small, but not that small.

It’s from the control module for a life support panel for the bridge area. For some reason, the bridge uses a slightly different type than the rest of the ship, and they had to swap this one with their one spare because there was inconsistencies in power levels.

Not a huge issue under normal circumstances, but potentially tragic in an emergency.

Coran had given him the specs, and asked if he would take a look to see if he could spot the issue. There was no guarantees they could procure a replacement in one of the tech markets, at least without causing the Galra to notice them.

It’s weirdly finicky work, checking connection by connection and comparing it to the drawings. Shiro had promised to keep the distractions (namely, the squabbling duo of Lance and Keith, as well as Pidge who might otherwise butt in) far away, tied up in physical training. Allura volunteered to help Shiro, probably by giving poor Keith a beat down. It was a shame he would miss it, although he would take Coran’s little assignment over a day in the gym anytime.

He’s identified a possible spot, and after soldering in the tiniest dot he connects the power supply and without thinking about it, gives flicks the switch with the other hand while he is still touching the power connection.

There is a sudden “pop”, the lights flicker, and the next thing Hunk knows, he’s flat on his ass on the floor, his whole arm tingling like heck.

“Ow,” he whines, clutching the limb to his chest. He hasn’t electrocuted himself in years, not since the second year at the Garrison. He should know better. He was better than this.

Dammit, he was supposed to be an engineer!

The computer bleeps from the lab counter, and Hunk reluctantly stands up, expecting that he’s fried the whole chip. But the computer reads “System nominal”.

“Well, shit, it’s fixed,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vaguely based on one of the places I lived in during my university years, a horrible basement suite. The one time, my housemate had shut off the main light for the stairwell with the master switch, which for reasons that I will never understand, was installed on a ceiling beam that I could only just reach. This was the middle of winter so it’s pretty much totally dark down there, so I felt around, flicked the switch, and gave myself a nasty little shock that knocked me on my ass. It took two hours before my arm stopped tingling. So the lesson is, don’t be like this accident prone linguist, be careful with electrical currents.
> 
> And just be happy, I grew up with family who worked in mines and did rescue work so I unfortunately have gorier stories about the dangers of electrical fields that I really didn't feel like incorporating.


	13. "Stay"

“Stay, Takashi. You don’t need to do this,” is what Shiro remembers most vividly about the night before he and the Holts launch off to Kerberos. He had reluctantly agreed to one last night together in the on-base apartment that they had been sharing, where there was boxes of his personal items tucked away in boxes lumped in a corner with Adam’s neat block script listing his name and service number in preparation for storage.

Months ago, when he finally got okayed to go on the mission in spite of Sanda’s disapproval, he had never thought that he would need to do this, that Adam would be there waiting for him to return.

Alas, Adam’s position that he needed to step away from this mission for the sake of his own health was what finally divided them irreparably. In many respects, they somehow, for some reason, continued to resemble a couple to those who did not know them well enough to tell any differently.

It was too much hassle, Shiro discovered, to get assigned new housing for only a few months. And he was barely ever home anyways, only really stopping to sleep. Half of the time, it was on the couch, leaving Adam alone in the bed he couldn’t always bring himself to consider his own.

The night before the launch, Shiro had taken his young protegee, Keith, out for a last supper of sorts. Eating the horrible but delicious cheeseburgers, fries, and milkshakes of a local diner that seemed to exist only to serve officers and cadets from the Garrison that were intent on escaping mess hall food periodically. He was home by 7pm, and other than taking an uncharacteristically long shower, it might have been easy to miss that he was about to go on a mission that would take him further than any other humans ever had before.

He was sitting on their bed, a soft tee hinting at his muscles below. The stimulator bracelet sat on the night stand while he rubbed lotion into his skin and face, while a movie played on his laptop. There was an external hard drive connected, and he was clearly downloading some last minute movies and music for the trip. His eyes rose to meet Adam’s, and he cautiously gestured that the other man should join him.

“I’ll have the bed for the next year, I’ll just be out at the couch,” Adam says.

“Please don’t say that,” Shiro says exasperatedly. “We somehow smuggled a king size bed into the housing block. There is more than enough space for us both.”

And so there they were, laying in the bed, hands together, until Adam’s final, and plaintive plea ruins the mood.

\---

It’s almost three in the morning, and Adam can’t sleep. He hasn’t managed to all night, instead just lays there, watching Shiro’s chest rise and fall in deep slumber, oblivious to the vigil.

It’s only hours until launch, and Shiro’s alarm will go off too soon. Breakfast, suit up, final system checks, launch. Leaving Earth, leaving their relationship, leaving him.

And Adam knows it’s for good. 


	14. Torture

Keith would only admit it to a select few people over his life, Shiro and his mother being the main two, but his biggest weakness was not physical, but psychological. Self-doubt always plagued him. Followed him. And it reared its ugly head at the worst possible moments.

Not good enough to keep his father from dying. Not good enough for any of the families that took care of him. Not good enough to get the extra help he needed at school. And after Shiro disappeared from his life, just as his mother and father had before him, not good enough for the Garrison.

He went into the trials for the Blade of Marmora thinking it was a test of his skills as a fighter. Having pushed himself most of his life, and even harder once he had become a paladin of Voltron, he could push himself to fight, and fight well.

But it never was enough, and he was now certain that he was going to get Shiro killed. Or worse.

He was so tired. But he needed to keep pushing himself. Until he either broke, or passed.

\---

Shiro would later tell him, from the privacy of a room they had ushered the two into for Keith to clean up for the return to the Castle of Lions, that the special suit the Blades had issued him was capable, and responsible for the psychological torture he had endured. Pushing himself to his limit physically had made him vulnerable to a fake Shiro in the form of a hologram programmed from his own psyche, urging him to just give up.

Although the real Shiro whispered praise and soothing words while gently cleaning the wound that encrusted his shoulder, the seed of self-doubt had long been planted. Would the real Shiro have wanted him to give up?

Shiro would never say as much to Keith’s face, and he didn’t dare ask the person he saw as his greatest mentor.

So the doubt remained. Buried, but simmering under the surface, until it was too much.

\---

Shiro corners him in the Castle a day later. Dark circles still stand out under Keith’s eyes, and Shiro knows all too well that once the red paladin had gotten past the post-recovery stupor from the healing pod, there was no meaningful rest.

The Shiro in Keith’s mind was a voice of doubt.

The Shiro standing before him is one of worry.

“You should go back to your room, Keith. Allura and Kolivan are still talking,” Shiro tells him.

“I’m sorry,” is all Keith mumbles in a haze of fatigue.

“What for?” Shiro’s voice is low and soothing. No, just a facade, Keith’s brain screams.

“I… I almost failed you,” he squeaks, holding back his emotions as they threaten to overwhelm him.

“What? No,” Shiro says firmly, before turning him around and guiding him back to his room with a firm but light touch to the small of his back.

As the door slides shut, Keith plunks down heavily on the edge of the bed as Shiro takes a seat next to him, pulling him into an embrace as tears drip gently down Keith’s cheeks.

“It’s okay,” Shiro tells him. “You’re one of the strongest people I know, but it’s okay. You don’t need to be strong for me.”

Keith lets out a sob, and buries his face into Shiro’s shoulder, hiding it from view.

“I’m not strong,” he protests, between shuddered breaths. “I let you down.”

“No, you haven’t. You passed the trials, and we have a valuable new ally. You did so well.”

“I almost gave up,” Keith’s voice hitches between sobs, his fists clutching handfuls of the vest material.

“But you didn’t. And I am so proud of you.” Shiro’s arms curl around him tighter, protectively. “Don’t doubt your own abilities, Keith. You are stronger than you realize.”

“What if I’m not? I can’t imagine losing you again,” Keith says, only the occasional hiccup interrupting.

“You’ve always saved me. And you always will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wound up being mostly comfort than psychological torture but pfft I've had a super busy weekend.
> 
> And I have to leave home 1.5 hours earlier than normal in the morning because work has sent me out to our lab waaaaaaay across the city until further notice.


	15. Manhandling

Matt has to say, getting sucked up into an alien ship as your first proof of sentient life beyond Earth is a very science fiction like cliché way to go about it. Running for his life, losing his footing, and then getting knocked out somewhere between the surface of Kerberos and the deck plating of this ship with all the purple glowing consoles is almost too much. His head is pounding, he’s so terrified that it’s a miracle that he hasn’t literally soiled his pants yet, and he knows, just knows, that all three of them are absolutely fucked.

When he comes to, face pressed awkwardly onto the inner faceplate of his helmet as he lays prone on the hard metal flooring, he can hear them already pulling Shiro upright. There is a faint ‘pop’ of the helmet coming off and Shiro’s protesting, although clearly he’s fighting back nausea and pain just as much as he is.

His father is still presumably out cold, and Matt can’t quite muster the energy to push himself up enough to look around.

They suddenly grab him and yank him up onto his knees, arms pulled painfully behind the backpack holding the life support for his suit as his wrists are handcuffed. They let go, and it takes all his energy to just stay upright, balanced on his knees as they shackle his father, who’s face behind the tinted helmet glass shows a groggy expression.

Sam, Matt knows all too well, will eventually say that he’s getting too old for this crap.

To be honest, Matt and Shiro probably now have reason to as well.

Shiro is still protesting to these aliens, but there isn’t any use. One of the guards grabs him by the wrists and starts to drag him off, and Matt grunts as he is yanked up under his arms by another guard and pulled down a corridor.

He’s tossed into a cell, and lands heavily on his side, arms still pinned behind him and he’s left there for hours, exhausted and sore before they eventually come around again just as his suit pings a warning about low air supply.

The released handcuffs offer a brief relief, restoring circulation, but they strip him of the suit and he’s forced into a tight but flexible black one piece suit that is topped with a looser purple top that barely adds any warmth.

Left again, isolated for the others, he sits in the cell for what he assumes is a few days based on the infrequent deliveries of bland food and water. He’s pulled from the cell, pushed onto a shuttle where his father and Shiro already sit, and all too soon, they are delivered to a prison camp, where Shiro and him are separated from Sam.

It’s many months before he sees his father again.

Only a month or so before Shiro essentially sacrifices himself for Matt.

It’ll be a lifetime before he stops having nightmares about this experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have a choice on my morning commute: being able to hold on to my mug of tea, and doing stuff on my iPad. Sigh. Hopefully I can get ahead again this weekend.


	16. Bedridden

“I swear to god, Takashi, if you keep hovering I will end your existence by pummelling you myself with these goddamn crutches.”

“I can't believe they gave you another dose of opiates before they let you leave the base hospital.” Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose. “Uh, Adam, honey, you know that they were really clear that you are not to put any weight on that leg for the next 24 hours, right?” Shiro leans against the door jam, arms now crossed. It had been a long day.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Then unless you need to pee - again - you had better not be doing what I think you are.”

“Since you seem to be so smart, where in the hell do you think I'm going?” Adam snarked.

“Not very far, because the crutches are out of your reach.” That had been a deliberate attempt at self preservation on Shiro's part.

“Have you always been such a smart ass?”

“If you want to call up my mother and endure her wrath, I am sure she would tell you just how early I started,” Shiro sighs. “Look, I know you probably are intent on making a go for the couch, but I'm sure you're going to pass out maybe half an hour into a movie and if you're going to be out for the count for the rest of the night I think you'd be more comfortable on the bed. Especially with the soft brace while the swelling goes down.”

Adam squints at him, still clearly annoyed. “I spent most of the damn afternoon on my back while they dealt with my leg. I'm sore,” he complains with emphasis.

“All the more reason why you should stay right where you are. I'll help you get comfortable with a movie on the laptop and when you pass out it'll be easier for me to help you lay out flat. Deal?”

“It's not like you're leaving me much choice. But fine, help me sit up straighter and bring the computer,” Adam huffs. Shiro carefully helps him shift back so he's propped up better against the headboard, and helps adjust the pillows propping up Adam's very swollen, and very sore broken leg.

The break was just below the knee, victim to a bad cycling incident in the woods. The mottled, purple bursting stood out again his normal tan complexion, and Shiro was still amazed they let him go home for the night with just a brace. They planned to encase the leg in a breathable and much sturdier cast the next day, but they said that the more the swelling reduced, the better for the fit.

He retrieves the computer from their living room, and hands it over, making sure Adam actually selects a movie rather than pull up work applications.

He slides next to his boyfriend on the bed, making sure he kept enough distance from the aching leg but still close enough to toss an arm over Adam's shoulder.

As Shiro predicted, Adam barely makes it through the movie’s introduction before he nods off, and when he's still asleep another half hour later, Shiro quietly shuts down the computer and gently guides Adam into a more comfortable supine position on the bed, and carefully covers him with the duvet.

He places a line of smaller pillows between them as a barrier from him accidentally jostling his boyfriend while asleep, and shuts off the lights and gets settled himself.

Adam was still likely to be annoyed with himself come morning, but once the medical staff had the proper cast on, Adam should probably be less bedridden. And they would deal with their change of summer plans one step at a time.

And if it meant a couple extra weekends of then having lazy mornings at home, Shiro was okay with that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did some really sobering and sad diversity and inclusion training today so trying to offset it with some more fluffy stuff.


	17. Drugged

It is bad enough that he has crash landed on Earth. He is sore, beyond hungry, and he is sure he picked up a mild concussion in the whole process of being trapped in a Galra escape pod that slammed into the desert, somehow miraculously close to the Garrison base that had been his home for years.

So when he comes to, tied down to a relatively flimsy portable exam table, able to feel his pulse through the pulsing headache, the last thing he expects is to be forcibly sedated.

It's too much like his ordeal with the Galra. Drugged, then forced to fight, only to be drugged again as they experimented in seemingly endless cycles.

He has no recollection of what is apparently another two or three hours. Keith, his young protégée, had sprung him from the custody of the Garrison team, along with the help of a trio of misfit cadets. He came to, laid out carefully on his side on a sofa in the derelict cabin Keith called home, cocooned in a blanket that warded off the nighttime chill.

He laid there, half asleep for a long time, barely able to hear the four teens squabbling from where they stood, outside. He was so sick to his stomach that the thought of just moving was too much.

Eventually, Keith, and a big guy that Shiro quickly learned was Hunk, came in. Hunk gently shook his shoulder, and as Shiro grimaced, helped him upright just long enough to drink some water, and he was happy to lay down again and sleep more.

In the morning, he woke again, and was happy that his head pounded less, and to see a change of clothes. Keith heated up enough water for him to scrub his hair cleaner and sponge bathe the rest of his body, then change into what he later learned was old clothes that belonged to Keith's father. Hunk concocts something from the canned goods Keith has been living off of, and the one, horrible but amazing Earth meal he has had in far too long goes a long ways to push off the queasy feeling he has fought for weeks, months even.

Hours later, and they are being shown to their rooms at the Castle of Lions. He is so wired he doubts he could sleep no matter his exhaustion, but just laying on the comfortable bed is enough to soothe the last of the nausea that has plagued him.

\---

A couple months later, he stumbles forward from a healing pod, caught by Hunk and Coran. He's so tired, so drained, he reluctantly lets himself get wrapped up in warm blankets and left to rest just long enough for Hunk to make something that will be gentle on his churning stomach that is not the weird goo from the kitchen dispensers. His prosthetic does not lose its chill for days.

His brain knows his fatigue is not drug induced for once, but the sensation is similar and unwelcome.

A week later, he corners Coran and tell him that he feels that the cryogenic stasis may be damaging his connection with the prosthetic, and he's miraculously allowed to heal naturally from minor injuries and ailments on his own, when the others would be coaxed into the pods.

He doesn't have to tell anyone it is because he feels drugged and helpless as a result of the treatment.

\---

A lifetime later, Allura reunite his weary soul with a body of a clone. He awakes, weakened but grateful to be viewing the world beyond the eyes of the black lion. Alas, his connection is tenuous at best, and he cannot remember being placed into the remaining Altean healing pod.

He awakes again, soon embraced by a desperate but grateful Keith, but quickly succumbs to a deep sleep that feels forced although the others assure is natural.

\---

Earth.

He is home, albeit to a world that has been conquered.

Allura has a possible solution to replace his damaged prosthetic, and he nearly balks at the prospect of extended surgery.

He purposely avoids Keith the night before, reporting to the hospital at an ungodly hour. He's cleaned in disinfectant soap, and shivers on a cold operating table. They do not have Altean medical technology at hand, and the monitoring equipment and trays of medications and equipment seems barbaric in comparison.

He tries to relax, and it's not until Sam Holt places a warm hand over his chest and says “We are here to help you, do not forget that,” that he can relax as the anesthesiologist begins to push the first of the medications that allows him to sleep through this experience with the least amount of discomfort.

He'll be okay. He'll be stronger than before. He just needs to be brave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry everyone, had two evenings in a row where I had other commitments and just never found time to post these chapters, so playing catch up today as I have time between appointments.


	18. Hostage

“They took Coran,” Shiro says neutrally, trying to repress the eye twitch that threatens to show.

Keith and Lance simultaneously look terrified and guilt stricken, and Shiro sets down the tablet that he was using to write up training plans with a small ‘thud’.

“The security for the market said that he was wanted!” Lance cries, his voice carrying the weird shrill tone that is usually reserved for when he’s panicking.

“So you left him there?!”

“They wouldn’t let us follow him to the security office!” Keith protests. “And they said that if we stayed we would be considered trespassers. What were we supposed to do?”

Shiro takes a deep breath and tries to compose himself. Fricking kids. How did he get stuck taking care of a gaggle of teenagers? “I need to go get Allura. You two grab Pidge and Hunk. They are in the lab in full mad scientist mode.”

Keith and Lance look at each other nervously. “Now!” Shiro yells, startling them down the hall.

\---

After what is probably about half an hour of Lance and Keith talking over each other, the basic story has come to light.

The three of them made what was supposed to be a quick trip to one of the many markets that dot the universe. This one was not as big as the “Space Mall” that they famously found the shop full of Earth goods, but it did have some of the specialty items that Coran was looking for, mainly rare parts compatible with the Altean tech of the castle.

Lance and Keith were there mainly to be glorified sherpas, and they were stuck outside a vendor stall with other purchases when a commotion rang out. The two of them only caught maybe half of the conversation, but security showed up and dragged Coran off to a back corridor, while the shopkeeper screamed about some fraud that someone that looked just like Coran had committed two years back.

Now, there was a few somewhat obvious issues with this, namely that two years ago, Coran was still frozen in stasis on the Castle, having not been shopping anywhere really for almost 10000 years.

So there was that. And secondly, there shouldn’t be any other random Alteans with ridiculous handlebar mustaches wandering the universe anymore.

Allura and Shiro sat there with matching expressions, very much trapped in the “space parent” role that was becoming the ongoing butt of all too many jokes.

“So,” Pidge finally speaks up. “I guess we have to find a way to spring Coran.”

\---

Coran had many a decaphoeb of experience on him even before he spent millenia in stasis, and even barring the utter and complete lunacy of this entire situation, he knew quite firmly, that things were not really as they should be.

He was locked in an empty room, but his sensitive Altean hearing meant that he could just make out the conversation in the hall outside.

“I can’t believe we found an Altean! The bounty on them is huge!” One voice says.

“They are supposed to be extinct!” says the other, giddy,

“Do you think we can hand them over and collect the GAC without the shopkeeper noticing? We can finally get off this shit hole of a trading post.”

“We promised to split the bounty.”

“Like that old geezer ever keeps any of his promises.”

“Well, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Coran just sighs, and stops listening in on the inane conversation.

\---

Allura comes up with a plan that Shiro doesn’t particularly care for, but he can’t see any real alternatives. She shape shifts to resemble another species, and the two of them are dropped off by Pidge, who stays close by to expedite a speedy retreat. The boys stay behind on the castle, although Keith and Lance chafe at being benched for the time being.

Shiro’s smothered under a cloak, but his height and relative bulk makes him feel so ridiculously conspicuous that he is sure that he will also get tossed off the station for his efforts, although if they succeed in freeing Coran, that might happen anyways.

Allura plods off to what Shiro assumes is some sort of administration office, and does her best to play the role of a demanding business woman who is less than pleased that her eccentric employee was detained on false pretenses.

Okay, so it had an element of truth, Shiro thought to himself, expression masked in shadow.

The manager of the outpost is summoned, and a staff member reluctantly shows a grainy security image of the person they supposedly thought Coran was. Aside from the mustache, there really was no resemblance.

The two security guards are shifting uncomfortably in the back of the room, exchanging worried glances.

“Well?” Allura says, her frustration in reality nearly matching her facade. “What’s the delay? It’s clearly not the person you claimed.”

“We contacted the authorities,” one of the guard mumbles, looking at his shoes.

The manager explodes on the two, screaming about their endless bounty schemes and how it is damaging his record with the imperial administration. He storms off to the back himself, Shiro in tow, and just as quick Coran is freed and being dragged off to the shuttle before Coran can make too many pointed comments about their disguises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I though this was submitted earlier, buy hey, appointments done and concert ticket bought for tonight.


	19. Exhaustion

It feels like it has been eons since he last had a full night of restful sleep, Shiro realizes. Endless training, skirmishes, attempts to learn to read Altean and Galra texts, forcing the others to participate in team building. It should be enough to make him sleep like a log, but nearly a year of hypervigilance, on top of a natural disposition to being a light sleeper, has taken a toll.

The slightly creak, or sound from outside the room, and he is startled awake, heart beating too fast.

It is always a long, hard process to relax enough again for sleep to return.

It is nearly two months into the stay at the castle, and he is only just starting to teach himself to relax when he can. There is so much to do, that this is easier said than done, but he is desperate now.

By supper time most nights, he is now in a haze. Meal time wizzes past in a blur of food he cannot remember the taste of, and he is useless in conversation.

So when Allura pulls him aside, and asks if he has anything he needs, he almost feels guilty in his request. Access to a bath.

She almost gasps at her oversight, and shows him to a small but functional bath not far from her own quarters. Alteans did not have much history of soaking in hot water, but some of the many species they allied with did and this was a small provision for royal guests.

Shiro gratefully takes his leave, and lets the basin fill. He bemoans that there is no way to clean up outside the hot bath, but gingerly lowers himself in up to his chest, letting the metal arm rest on the ledge.

It’s blissful.

He is thoroughly wrinkled when he reluctantly pulls himself from the hot water, and pulls on fresh sleep clothes and pads back to his room, crawling into bed immediately without turning on the lights.

He’s asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, and for the first time in longer than he can remember, he sleeps through the night.

He is still tired by morning, but as time permits, he allows himself the luxury of this little ritual that is one of the few cultural practices he always cherished from his childhood, and it soothes his soul enough for his body to heal as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we are caught up again.
> 
> Weird fact: I lived in Japan for a year and now if a bath isn't quite deep and at least 39C it just does not feel right.


	20. Concussion

Her head pounds, and she feels like a semi-truck has smacked her. All she can hear is the pulse thumping away in her ears in a rhythm that does not match the cadence of the movement she feels.

In the briefest of moments, she manages to crack her eyes open, but the nausea of being carried in Shiro's arms is almost too much to bear and she groans.

“Katie?” Shiro’s voice is low but gentle. If her helmet was off, she is sure she could hear the resonance within his chest.

That helmet probably was what saved her though.

They had been infiltrating a base, as they had found themselves often doing. She still needed the interface in Shiro’s prosthetic arm to access Galran computer networks, and the intelligence was invaluable for them as Allura and Coran sought to catch up just as fast as the paladins as to the reality of the new order of the universe they found themselves in. And well, finding her brother and father too.

A lucky strike by a sentry bot smacked her upside the head while she was off balance, sending her flying across the corridor. Her bayard dissolved as she lost grip of it, and although Shiro was right beside her within a moment, the damage was already done as she slams into the wall and crumples to the floor.

“Yeah?” she eventually answers Shiro. She was so tired that she barely notices that he doesn’t call her Pidge.

“Stay awake for me, Katie” he tells her.

“I don’t feel well,” she responds, too weary to be anything but completely truthful. “But you said you had a new lead on Matt.”

Shiro frowned a little. That had been almost a couple weeks ago.

“We need to find him,” she continues while Shiro adjusts his hold on her as they exit the building.

“We will,” Shiro reassures her, as the sight of their lions comes back into view. “We are just on our way back to the castle first.”

Not long before, Keith had learned almost accidentally that the lions had what was essentially a pull down bed in the back. The mattress was a little firm, but it was better than the hard metal flooring. Shiro walks up the ramp into the black lion, and props her up momentarily in the pilot seat before pulling down the bed surface and retrieving her.

Her helmet is set aside, and she lays out on the surface, eyes slipping shut. She can just barely feel the green lion in the back of her mind, which is projecting protective concern.

The green lion launches and to follow its sister, and soon enough, they are back at the castle.

Coran looks over her, and confirms Shiro’s suspicions that she has a mild concussion, one that would likely resolve itself with a couple days of rest.

Hunk helps her to her room, and gets her settled. As she finally relaxes into sleep, she knows that she will be watched over by all the team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of five that are based on some art I found that very much fits the theme. I will share the link later as I have to step out right away.


	21. Harsh Climate

The ground rumbles every twenty or so minutes, Lance realizes from where he is trapped under the remains of the abandoned citadel they had been walking through when the main earthquake struck.

Not that he can see much.

The weight on the armour plating is almost suffocating, but he thinks that his right hand is free. He can barely shift any of his other limbs side to side, and he know that he's trapped.

His eyes feel heavy. He thinks the helmet is intact, but the air it provides is not cool enough to keep him awake, and he slowly drifts off.

\---

Hunk scrambles across the rubble, wincing as pieces shift under his weight. Just their luck, he thinks cynically. They've collectively seen almost everything he thinks there is out there to see, yet he's proven wrong continually.

Earthquakes are not unknown by his family, but this one was severe by any standard. He was outside when it struck, and the ground visibly shifted in the distance, and the already unstable ruins they were examining did not stand a chance.

Lance’s startled squeak over the comms was indicative enough that he was still inside, although he's been silent ever since. Hunk is well aware that time is ticking, and he's already called the others back from where they were examining another site nearby.

Closer to the centre of what would have been the lobby area of the building, Hunk spots a flash of blue. Lance’s hand pokes out from under a pile of rubble. He lets his visor go up in the dusty room long enough to yell “Hey Lance, buddy, can you hear me?” as he scrambles around the area, trying to avoid shifting the rubble over him too early.

The room rumbles again, and his visor seals immediately as he instinctively throws his hands over what little of his neck is somewhat vulnerable between the helmet and cuirass.

“Shit,” he yells into the comm. “An aftershock,” is all he manages to clarify before more rubble falls from the roof and he's knocked to his side by a piece that's bigger than a bowling ball and just as heavy. He tries to get as close to Lance’s exposed arm as an even larger piece falls on top of where Lance lays, and Hunk is buried in layers of grit and smaller items.

The shaking stops maybe a minute later, but Hunk is almost afraid to move, worried that the wrong action will unsettle the area further.

He scoots closer, carefully, and grabs Lance’s hand and give it a squeeze. There is no immediate response.

“Hurry,” he tells the others. “I don't think we have long before the whole place comes down.”

To Lance, he switches to a private comm channel. “Buddy, hey, we gotta go home. We gotta get out of here. Everyone is waiting for us, you just need to hold on.”

He’s not sure if Lance has hear him, but he's cleared most of the small pieces around them, and is looking at if he can pull a larger piece off on his own when he hears a slight thud from nearby, followed by the green lion cautiously sticking her head in over them.

“You're here!” Hunk yells, thankful.

“Shiro and Keith are coming in on foot, give us a few ticks,” she says. He can hear the two of them carefully crawling over the rubble, and they've brought a stretcher and rudimentary first aid kit.

The green lion cautiously scoops to the side some of the material in the area, leaving a mound the size of a few cars. Shiro guides Pidge to bring a final sweep with the paw a foot or so over where they know Lance to be laying, and with a single movement the worst of the remaining rocks and concrete are pushed aside. The three of them immediately heave off a couple remaining large pieces and pull Lance out.

A quick scan of the medical readouts brings up no spinal damage, but they can all hear Lance’s wheezing breaths, so they lift him onto the stretcher and haul him into the waiting jaw of the green lion.

Hunk remains with Lance as Pidge takes off, and Shiro reports that another aftershock hits just as they left.

Lance has several broken ribs, a broken leg, and just enough compression against his chest armour and abs that he had not been breathing fully in spite of the helmet remaining intact. His lips turn from a pale colour to normal by the time they reach the castle, and he is glad to see Coran waiting for them at the hangar.

Lance is stripped of his paladin armour, and is carefully helped into the tight pod suit and placed inside.

“He will take almost a quintant,” Coran says. “Shiro will help you retrieve the blue and yellow lions, then you should rest yourself. Lance will still be here by the time you get some sleep.”

Hunk absentmindedly nods, and returns to the planet just long enough to climb into his lion, and hook tethers onto the blue lion so that they can tow it back to the castle.

Hunk rinses off his armour of the grime, then takes a long shower. Tired, but still too wired to sleep, he works off his anxiety in the kitchen before Shiro chases him to bed, but only after a short detour to see Lance, who is suspended in dreamless sleep. Over 14 varga remain on the timer, which is more than enough, and Hunk settles into an exhausted sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The initial plan was supposed to include some other harsh weather but eh, it just didn't work that way.


	22. Friendly Fire

It was chaos.

A mission gone tragically and horribly wrong.

Lance was set up in a remote location, sniping sentries as they appeared while the trio of Allura, Shiro, and Keith took out patrols, and Hunk watched over Pidge as she did her computer magic.

Because of the localized radar readings their suits provided, he was able to see things he couldn't necessarily get clear shots of. So when a sentry was spotted in a corridor just inside the building from where Pidge had set up shop, there wasn't much he could necessarily do unless the sentry changed patterns to exit the compound.

The sentry moved out of range, so he had no reason to suspect that it would indeed leave through a gate well out of his line of sight, then make a loop back. He was tracking two other sentries patrolling in the other direction, and did not see it until Pidge’s scream over the comm. Hunk was trying to wrestle the sentry off her, but his armaments were ranged, and even he was outsized by the hulking robot.

They are partly obscured by a building, only a sliver visible to the eye although Lance can see the whole scene through the radar. The window for a shot is too small, but he takes aim, looking to disable the bot where it's extra height and reach make it stand above the two paladins.

He takes in a breath, lets it out partly, and aims.

The sentry crumples to the ground at the same time as an anguished cry.

Pidge is almost covered by the disabled sentry, but her cries are clear; friendly fire has injured her too.

Hunk has grabbed her and hauled her towards the lions, their mission abandoned. Lance scrambles from his viewpoint, only pausing to raise his helmet’s visor to vomit in dread and guilt. He races on, but is stopped by Shiro as he reaches the lion.

“She'll be okay, it was only a graze,” is all he says. “Get back to the castle. We'll talk later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually try to have a somewhat happy ending but thought this one was strangely complete as it was. Just remember, Pidge will be okay. And I would think she'd be harder on herself than Lance.
> 
> I know I'm running a bit behind, but I literally had no brain power left last night by the time I finished a gruelling day at work, got groceries, made supper, prepped all my lunches for the week, etc. So I binged watched Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199 because I only just learned that there was a sequel series released earlier this year and God knows I am stupidly in love with space mecha animes to a fault.


	23. Drowning

Shiro peers over the creek ravine with a skeptical look. Coran had said that this planet was rich in some sort of mineral that would be beneficial as a based material for certain parts they needed to replicate for the castle, but he was not sure that he was particularly useful on this mission.

Pidge and Hunk were busy looking at samples with Coran, and Lance and Keith were off on the other side of the camp playfully sparring to kill the time.

The creek was fairly fast moving, it looked like this planet was at the equivalent of late spring, with winter run off feeding the waterway just below capacity. The ground was moist and occasionally unstable, but there was the odd flash of metallic gold from the churning water, so he gets to his knees to look over the edge and get a better look.

The ground crumbles under his weight, and with a startled yelp he tumbles into the water head first, bashing his head on a rock before between being swept away downstream, his metal arm dragging against the bottom.

His helmet is behind at the camp, in a moment of stupidity, and he struggles to catch gulps of air when his face briefly breaks the surface. He manages to twist himself around but no longer able to look ahead, he does not see the boulder his head smacks against, and that's the last he remembers.

\---

Keith and Lance have just finished a round of sparring and are leaned against a tree when Keith looks around for Shiro, who had been wandering around with a wary eye not long before. He can't see him anywhere so Keith pulls up the locator beacon on his gauntlet computer.

It shows Shiro near the river some distance away. It's unlike Shiro to wander off like this, and Keith pushes himself up.

“What's up?” Lance asks him.

“Shiro's a lot further out than he normally would be. I'm going to go see what he found.”

“Oh, I'll come with you.”

The two of them are maybe a few minutes out when the locator beacon reads an alert, showing that Shiro was in medical distress.

They hear the black lion roar from the base camp, and Keith and Lance break into a run, bolting towards the creek as the hulking mass of the lion flies overhead and lands at a spot ahead of them and audibly keens.

As they slide up to the edge of the bank, there is barely time to think before they both slide down the couple feet into the water. Shiro's face down, partly washed up against a rock, rinsed with blood tinted water. Lance’s instincts from years of swimming kick in and he wades through the water without hesitation.

Keith helps him flip Shiro onto his back, and Lance pulls himself behind Shiro's chest plate and gives a single hard pull against the abdomen. The taller man retches suddenly vomits a combination of his lunch and river water, then sags even more while alternating between coughing his lungs out and gasping for air.

Keith helps grab some of Shiro's dead weight, and the two of them drag him out of the churning water, where the black lion hovers over then protectively.

Shiro's eyes are clenched shut, all his energy reserved for just breathing and expelling the water he was trapped within.

Keith shakes Shiro's shoulder but just gets a groan. There is a patch of blood tinted hair at the back of his hair, and when Lance gingerly presses on it, Shiro almost hisses with pain between wet coughs.

“Shiro? Open your eyes up for me, buddy,” Keith coaxes. He can see Coran and Allura running up, with the other two paladins right behind them.

Shiro cracks his eyes open finally, and slumps against Lance's chest with a sigh.

“Remind me not to ever do that again,” he says with typical dark humour, and there is a stark contrast between Keith and Lance's amused looks and Allura and Coran’s shocked expression at the joke.

They help him up, and he manages to limp into the lion, where he and Coran head up to the castle where Coran is able to clean up and seal the cut in the back of his head, get a dose of antibiotics, and he's left to nap in the infirmary with a monitor running quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been dealing with some intense fatigue combined with insane writers blocks when it came time for what should have been chapter 23, so I'm going to push it back a few and hopefully get to it in the next few days while I post about 3 chapters a day of what I had worked on to catch up.
> 
> Sorry all.


	24. Restraints

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of a different take of a chapter of my fic, Aftermaths. But can be stand-alone.
> 
> Spoilers for S7.

  
Shiro is well aware that there is a lot of things that have ample opportunity to trigger his post-traumatic stress. But getting tied up, well, that ranks fairly high on the list.

Now, as he has tried to explain to not only his therapist, but Keith, Coran, Allura, and damn near everyone else, it’s not really things like safety harnesses, seat belts, even handcuffs. He’s talking full body restraints.

The sort of thing one might see used for medical treatments. Or in his case, medical torture at the hands of the Galra.

This had an unfortunate tendency to manifest as panic when strapped to a gurney, which Earth medics were quite fond of it would seem.

It is the aftermath of the battle with Sendak for the liberation of Earth, and Shiro’s exhausted beyond words, only fueled by the last of a long drawn out adrenaline rush and intense concern for the five paladins who have plummeted in their lions back to the surface. He’s been hauled back to the medical bay, which he had left against orders already once that day, and a determined flight surgeon has told him under no uncertain terms that he is being taken back down to the base hospital for further assessment and treatment.

Granted, once they began to strip off his flight suit, there was no hiding that he was a giant, walking bruise.

The relief from the initial dose of painkillers is almost overwhelming, and he lets himself sink into a fog of near-sleep once he was laid out on the stretcher. He doesn’t notice the pressure of the straps keeping him secured on the shuttle down, but as they pull him out to wheel the gurney into the hospital, he startles awake.

The panic is instantaneous.

All his instincts are to get upright, and away from the medics that are now calling out to him, saying he needs to calm down.

Calm down?!

He tries to activate his hand, but other than the disembodied forearm jerking against his torso from where it has been tucked under the blanket, nothing happens. What’s wrong with it?

“Commander Shirogane!” a voice yells at him, authoritatively. He flinches away from it, heart hammering in his chest. “Shiro!”

He lets out a gasp, and the room comes into focus for a moment. He’s at the Garrison. Not a Galra ship.

“Help me get him sitting up,” the voice from above him says. There is a click, and the perceived weight on his chest disappears. The metal gurney creaks as the one side is raised, and he can see around him.

A nurse is pushing something into his IV drip, and the raw panic fades a little, leaving just the exhaustion behind again.

“Commander?” he hears, as he opens his eyes again. “Can you tell me where you are?”

He looks around. “The hospital.”

“That’s right,” he’s told encouragingly. Another click, and the final weight pressing on his legs is gone.

“We need to get you into the scanner, then you can go upstairs to rest. Okay?”

He feels like he needs to do something. But what? “Where are the others?”

“On their way. They are all alive. Let us take care of them. Just rest,” the voice is soothing to his frayed nerves.

Someone helps him step off the gurney, and after the flight suit is tugged off, he’s laid onto the scanner bed. It hums for a couple minutes, and he barely recalls the trip up the ward, nor getting settled into the hospital bed. But his brain, for once, tells him he’s safe.

It’s another ten hours before he wakes again.


	25. "I can't walk"

_Dios_ , he thinks, Shiro’s really heavy.

Yes, he’s got a good few inches over him, is built out, and yes, has a damned metal arm, but he shouldn’t be this heavy.

He and Keith managed to carry him without too much trouble when they rescued him from the portable hazmat lab that fateful night, but that was two of them.

Lance is alone, and it’s his job to save his leader’s ass.

Oh, he is well aware that Shiro is going to be in a right foul mood once he wakes up, but for now, as he heaves his heavy, dead weight across the floor of the grand hall of the abandoned town hall they were searching for clues in, Lance would just like for him to wake up just a little bit, so that he has a hope of actually getting him back to the lions.

There was a booby trap, of course. Probably not Galra, because it didn’t fit in with their usual modus operandi, but likely the civilization that existed her up until maybe 50 or so Earth years ago. Clearly the local population was more valuable as labour than the resources their home planet offered, because the structures in almost every settlement were essentially left as is, only their inhabitants, and some decor that may have contained precious metals missing.

Lance isn’t sure what exactly Shiro did to trigger it, but the gas that was released was very fast acting on his human physiology. He barely closed his own visor in time, but Shiro was already sunk down, on his hands and knees on the ground. He’s wheezing, his helmet perched on a crate near the entranceway.

All he manages to say is “Shit, I can’t walk,” before he passes out, and lands ungracefully in a heap on the floor. Shiro’s never going to hear the end of this one, forgetting his own advice about hanging onto their protective gear at all times.

He hoists Shiro up again, trying to maintain his grip near the base of Shiro’s chest plate, and one step at a time, drags the taller man towards the door.

“Red?” he calls out to his lion. “This would be a really great time to come meet me at the door!”

Shiro’s lips, already pale, start to take on an unhealthy bluish tinge. He’s breathing, evidenced by the horrible wheezing noise he is making every couple seconds, but it’s obviously not being all that effective.

He finally has dragged him across the hall, and he lets Shiro’s weight settle on the ground, grabs the helmet and pushes it onto Shiro’s head. He pulls up the suit controls, and sets the air feed to as high a concentration of oxygen as he feels comfortable with, and the visor seals shut.

Shiro’s still wheezing like an asthmatic finishing a marathon, but the blue tinge fades back to merely horrifically pale.

He can hear one of the lions roaring as he drags Shiro over the threshold, exiting the building finally. Black. She must not have picked up their lifesigns from within, and Shiro’s stats are not good.

Red is behind Black, and lands with a thud reasonably close to them, and crouches as low as she can get. It makes hauling Shiro’s heavy weight up the ramp a bit easier, but Lance would be lying if he said that lowering the other man to the floor plating was done with any grace whatsoever.

He opens a comm line as he tugs Shiro into a sitting position against the wall of the cockpit, and they are off and on their way to the castle before he can even begin to explain. Black tails them in Red, hovering anxiously.

\---

Shiro is asleep in a healing pod, frozen upright like a human popsicle while the Altean tech purges his body of the airborne toxin. To Galra and Alteans, it merely is sedative, but to humans, they discover, it is mildly paralytic and causes irritation. It might only take a couple hours in the pod to reverse most of the damage, but he’ll need to sleep with supplemental oxygen for a night to be on the safe side.

Keith is hovering in the room, and Lance, finally convinced he has done all he can for the night, takes his leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, another skipped prompt, but trying to get stuff out there for you all to enjoy.


	26. Broken Ribs

Keith is crumpled against the rock face, blood splattered on the inside of his helmet from a particularly wet cough.

Shiro and Allura are holding the giant lizard… thing at bay, while Hunk and Lance try to find weak points with their ranged weapons.

After countless battles with Galra forces, it is sometimes these wild creatures they encounter on uninhabited worlds that prove the most dangerous. Humanoids, and the robots they create, are wonderfully predictable in comparison.

Keith and Shiro are both limited to melee combat by their shared bayard and secondary weapons, and while it is a strength, it also opens them up for more crushing blows. Like the type that takes Keith out with a swipe of a horned tail, sending him flying until he hits the bottom of the cliff wall.

Pidge breaks away from the group, running to Keith’s crumpled form, and pushes him more upright. The visor refuses to retract, so she pulls the whole helmet off, prying open an eye at a time while shining the gauntlet light in his face. Keith groans and winces away from the light, but is awake.

He's clutching his midsection where the chest plate ends, and when Pidge pulls up the medical scanner, she is not surprised that the bottom three ribs on one side are broken, pressing against the lung. The skin is also broken under the flight suit, and a prod reveals a gooey sensation of blood trapped within the suit. No wonder it hurts.

The creature screams behind her, and they both look up as it crumples to the ground as Shiro, covered in alien creature blood and gore, tries to shake the worst of the gunk off himself, not bothering to hide the look of utter disgust on his face.

Hunk has already made a go for his lion, the closest one to them.

“Keith, we're going to get you to the Castle. Hunk will be back in just a dobosh,” she tells him. “Then we can deal with the bleeding. You're going to be okay.”

Shiro and Lance stand behind her, with Allura not far behind them.

“Broken ribs. We need to be careful, one is pressed against the lung. Lets get him to the Castle,” she tells the others with an air of authority she rarely gets to wield.

Shiro nods. “Lance, Allura, if you don't mind. I don't want to have to decontaminate more than I have to,” he sighs, referring to his disgusting armour.

“Of course,” Allura says, pulling one arm over a shoulder as Lance does the same, and they carefully pull Keith up to standing, and walk him slowly to where Hunk is waiting with the yellow lion.

Within the castle, Shiro's trapped in a decontamination shower while Hunk and Coran make quick work of stripping Keith of his armour, and as Coran is pulling the tight cryopod suit over Keith's legs, Lance cannot help but notice the near indent where Keith's broken ribs lay under the skin.

Keith is in the pod before Shiro makes it to the room, hair dripping and hastily dressed, and it takes prodding from Hunk to coax him to the dining hall for a meal while Keith is suspended in healing sleep.


	27. Severe Illness

“Adam.”

He looks up, to see Commander Iveson standing in the doorway of the Instructor’s lounge as he pours his mid-morning coffee into the travel mug. There is an odd expression on Iverson’s face, that the cadets would probably misinterpret as repressed annoyance, but the officers knew it to be masked concern.

“Yes, sir?”

“Give me your lesson plan for this afternoon and go to the base hospital. Shirogane needs you.”

\---

Takashi is laid out on a hospital bed, mostly propped up, but his head is leaned back on top of the pillow with his eyes shut. He looks drained, and the usual electrostimulator bracelet has been replaced with a mesh glove of sorts that extends up past his right elbow.

The monitors behind him read a resting heart rate, but his blood pressure is terrible.

A doctor steps into the room behind him, and ushers him to an empty office. They have done this before, too often, and the formalities of confirming his identity and next of kin status are skipped.

“It’s happened again,” Adam says simply, and the doctor nods with a hint of sadness that is unusual for this profession.

“He was check pilot on the flight when he reported weakness in his arm. The student returned them to base, but he collapsed while exiting the aircraft. Low blood pressure, weakness extending to the legs. It was only supposed to be a low-G flight, so they were not wearing compression suits.”

“I see.”

“We are synthesizing the medication in the lab, but we need to do two injection sites this time as it looks like it may be beginning to affect his lower limbs. We caught this early, so he should be discharged either tonight or tomorrow.”

“It’s ahead of schedule,” Adam notes, pulling the calendar up on his phone. The treatment was supposed to be every four weeks, only three had passed.

“We will re-evaluate after this treatment. We may be able to extend his flight status longer with some modifications. Have him wear a compression suit as a standard for example. He’s strong otherwise.”

“I know,” Adam says. Takashi has been proving them wrong for years now, flying better, faster, higher than all his peers in spite of everything. He is on the short list for the Kerberos mission.

He returns to the room, letting his boyfriend doze until the nurses come to prep him for the treatment. For once, Adam is allowed to follow them as they push the gurney to a sterile treatment room, and once scrubbed up and hidden under a medical gown, gloves and a mask, he holds Takashi’s hands as they get him settled on the treatment bed, laid on his side with knees pulled up to the chest.

The spinal injections are at best uncomfortable, but the staff are experienced and fast, and Takashi is left to rest until suppertime, when a physiotherapist shows up to make sure he can walk without assistance, and makes adjustments to the electrostim mesh before he’s discharged.

Adam calls in a favour, and a colleague of theirs drives them back to their quarters.

Takashi is sullen, and the silent treatment he gives Adam hurts. His chances at the mission are practically gone, and they both know it.

The next day, Takashi is still technically on medical leave, so Adam leaves him to go teach his morning classes. He stops back at lunch hour, but Takashi is gone and has left his phone on the nightstand. There is a small note on their tiny excuse of a dining table, in a shaky scrawl: ‘At follow up appointments’ is all it says.

Adam decides to give him space, and instead of coming back after his last class of the day, he spends most of that evening marking assignments in the training facility rather than their quarters. He eventually makes the walk home, where Takashi sits in a funk on the couch, curled up with his tablet. The bulkier bracelet is back on his wrist, the mesh gone. There is remains of a take out meal from the mess on the counter in the kitchenette.

“It’s not good news, is it?” Adam asks tentatively.

The perturbed look Takashi gives him says it all, but Adam is too tired to argue about this that night.

“I hope you realize we are all trying to help you,” is all he says, before he steps into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually one of the first prompts I wrote, back when I hoped that I could post them all in order, on the right days.


	28. Seizure

The lions had fallen out of the sky, their paladins drained, but not dead.

Sam Holt feels like his stomach has fallen into a pit, and that immense dread is only tempered by the news that his daughter is alive.

Knowing that she is being treated and will soon be on the way allows him to focus on other things. Shiro has all but collapsed, exhausted from a series of battles. Sam ensures he is finally being taken down to the medical bay.

A rescue crew is on route to the sea, searching for Allura. Hunk has been retrieved from the yellow lion. The red lion releases its paladin just next to the air strip.

It leaves the black lion. Sam joins a crew that makes its way from the Atlas, as the black lion lays dormant and refuses to yield its paladin. It’s a good thing that Shiro was incapacitated, Sam thinks, as he would surely be trying to take over the efforts.

There was a few benefits of having had some one on one time with his daughter, years ago on the castle. She had shown him how to access a hatch that had a manual latch. Small, and something that you would only notice if you knew how to look for it, Sam manages to wedge a couple fingers under it and it pops open, leaving a panel ajar that two combat engineers are then able to pull aside, revealing a narrow but passable way inside.

It’s pitch black inside, and the floor is at a steep angle. Sam skids down towards the cockpit, with a medic behind him carrying a large trauma pack and a lantern.

Keith is barely visible until they come around the pilot chair, and he’s sprawled face first over the front console. Blood drips slowly from the smashed helmet visor, but his hitched breathing is an audible sign that he is still alive.

For now.

More medics and rescue crew follow them inside, and make quick but careful work of bracing Keith’s spine from behind before flipping him supine and removing the helmet. An oxygen mask fogs with each breath, but the lead medic’s concerned look as they test Keith’s pupil response is concerning.

Sam has made his way to a bigger emergency hatch, and pulls the release to provide a better route for the stretcher.

It takes some time to carefully pull Keith from the belly of the lion, but he’s transferred to a waiting ground ambulance for the short trip to the base hospital.

Sam arrives behind, enough to note Shiro being taken off for scans, and Lance being treated in another room. But he follows to keep an eye on Keith, because he knows that he could never look Shiro in the eye if something went wrong and he was not there for the young man.

The armour has been stripped off, and the flight suit is gone to reveal a mosaic of new bruises and old scars. To the medical staff, it is mildly shocking, but to Sam, it is not surprising in the least.

Keith’s barely out of the scanner when it begins. A doctor yells for a medication, while a team turns him to the side, maintaining his spinal alignment as best they can.

The seizure lasts barely 20 seconds, but it’s plummeted Keith’s oxygen saturation. A nurse begins to push deeper breaths with a bag-valve mask almost as soon as it ends.

Sam is pushed out of the periphery of the room, and he hovers anxiously from the hall while medical staff bustle in and out of the room, until his own fatigue gets the better of him, and he slumps into a hard plastic chair nearby.

His daughter arrives not long after, and he pulls himself away only after emphatically telling a nurse to grab him if something serious happens again, and his focus is diverted.

Two hours later, Katie is under the watchful eyes of her mother in a ward, dead to the world asleep but astonishingly sporting only minor injuries, and he pulls himself away.

Keith’s in another ward, under intensive care. A mess of sensors are nestled on his scalp, and the gash on his forehead is hidden with a crown of sterile gauze. IV tubing, monitoring sensors, smaller bandages, almost hide the young man.

By all indications, the creature absorbed the energy of Voltron through the black lion, and Keith’s life force was what kept them all alive. It is miraculous beyond the powers of explanation of Earth technology, and Sam is too tired to seek Coran out from his own vigil over the Princess Allura.

He glances at the labels on the myriad of IV medications hung over the bed, feeding into a complicated pump. Some are electrolytes, glucose, anti-inflammatories, painkillers. And anticonvulsants.

Sam’s not a medical doctor, but knows it will be some time before they know for sure if there will be long term impacts, or if this was some fluke of a brain injury, the utter draining nature of their final fight, or some combination of the two.

So he leaves the ICU nurse to her diligent vigil, knowing that more answers will come in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should make a huge caveat that the weird medical knowledge I gained from my father over the years does not extend much to seizures. And the great Google overlords were not as helpful as I tried to research things from my phone while on the bus as I had hoped. So this is maybe a little light on the seizure itself, and heavier on general medical whump, which I could write with more confidence.


	29. Caregiver

  
“This wasn’t how I imagined this would work out,” Shiro says reflectively. “If you had asked me a long time ago, I never would have guessed that I’d be filling this role.”

“Don’t say that,” he’s told. “You’ve always made it your mission to look after others. This doesn’t change anything.”

“I suppose.”

Shiro pushes back the stiff, plastic chair, and stands up. Pacing a couple steps, he stretches his back until he feels a slight pop. After years of generally abusing his body, sitting in one place for too long always makes him feel stiff. Granted, he is told that is generally what happens when you get older, although by most objective standards he is not really there yet.

“Why don’t you go home?”

Shiro turns and shakes his head. “I just feel guilty if I get to go home and lounge on the couch, and get the bed to myself. Nah, I’m good.”

“I thought we discussed this. Just because I am stuck here doesn’t mean you don’t get to have a life beyond work and visiting me.”

“And I thought that we had long since committed ourselves to supporting each other, saving each other, for as many times as it takes.”

“They said I might be well enough to recuperate from home tomorrow. Go home, get some sleep.”

Shiro lets out a long sigh. “Okay, I’ll go. Did you need me to bring anything back here in the morning?”

“Nah, I think I have everything I need in the overnight bag. Thanks.”

“I’ll see you later then,” Shiro says, leaving a gentle kiss on the forehead. “I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I think everyone will know which pairing I was thinking of when I wrote this chapter, but it was an interesting exercise back almost a month ago when I wrote most of it to not identify all the characters in this ficlet.
> 
> Sorry everyone, for the super late update. I had hoped to finish the last couple prompts earlier this month, but this was the only one that I had drafted that I feel I can release. With season 8 approaching, I'm puttering away at a longer WIP, but will see how much the last season destroys all my head canons for the Aftermaths continuity.
> 
> I've found it nearly impossible to get any writing done during my commute, and have had some non-fiction work (I also do research on military history and needed to prep some material before an interview a couple weeks ago) that I have needed to plough through for others, so my fan fiction writing output has gone way down.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed these little fics.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't had much time as of late for writing, but figured that I would try for as many of the prompts as I can because they are all so tempting. And then I might not feel so guilty about my lack of progress on my other WIP.
> 
> I'm in the middle of a transfer to a new position at work, so for the second half of the month it will be interesting to see how well I can write on my iPad on the bus as I'll be at a new location further from home.


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